Antislavery movements -- United States; Swisshelm, Jane Grey Cannon, 1815-1884; Women's rights -- United States
I was afraid of this arrangement, but was anxious to keep up the paper
as a separate publication, and agreed on condition that he would assume
the entire financial responsibility, keep my interest at Mr. Riddle's
valuation, and leave me no further risk than my services. If there were
profits, we would share them; if none, I got no pay, as usual, but sunk
no money. To make the changes he desired, I loaned him money until I had
most of my small estate invested, and supposed the paper was prospering
until suddenly informed that the sheriff was about to sell it. We
transferred it to Mr. Riddle, with my services two years in advance, to
pay the debts, and I wrote for the New York _Tribune_, at five dollars a
column, to meet my personal expenses, as my income from my property was
gone.
I forget at what time the _Visiter_ was united to the weekly _Journal;_
but very soon after the presidential campaign of '52, I learned that my
late partner had endorsed several notes which were not likely to be paid
by the persons who gave them, and that one of these was already entered
as a lien against his interest in the family estate. We had had no
settlement, so I went to my lawyer, William M. Shinn, who said that the
entire interest of my debtor in his father's will was worth less than my
claim since his death, without heirs, before his mother transferred his
share to the other heirs. He advised me, if possible, to get a deed of
that share as the only security for which I could hope. I directed him
to prepare it, went immediately to the office, saw my late partner, and
told him that if he did not execute that deed, I would sue him for a
settlement before I left the city. He did, and I took it home early in
the afternoon. In March '57, I resigned my place on the _Family Journal
and Visiter_, feeling that my public work was over, and that no life
save one of absolute solitude was possible for me.
I had lived over twenty years without the legal right to be alone one
hour--to have the exclusive use of one foot of space--to receive an
unopened letter, or to preserve a line of manuscript
"From sharp and sly inspection."
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, a Pennsylvania court
decided that a husband had a right to open and read any communication
addressed to his wife. Living as I did, under this law I had burned the
private journal kept in girlhood, and the letters received from my
brother, mother, sister and other friends, to preserve their contents
from the comments of the farm laborers and female help, who, by common
custom, must eat at our table and take part in our conversation. At the
office I had received, read and burned, without answer, letters from
some of the most prominent men and women of the era; letters which would
be valuable history to-day; have, therefore, no private papers, and
write this history, except a few public dates, entirely from memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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